Friendly Captcha for WordPress

77 Quality Score

Active Installs

18/30

With roughly 9,000 active installs it is a niche player compared to Akismet's 6 million, but it earns a slightly above-baseline score given its focused audience.

Update Freshness

25/25

A perfect maintenance score reflects the very recent last-updated timestamp, confirmed compatibility with WordPress 6.8.5, and a modest PHP 7.3 minimum.

User Rating

12/15

A 78 out of 100 from 18 ratings is decent but based on a small sample, so the average could shift quickly as more users install it.

Support Health

8/15

Only one support thread exists and it is resolved, which is clean on paper but too small a sample to draw firm conclusions about responsiveness.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Compatibility lands at 75 because the plugin supports modern WordPress and PHP but does not advertise deep testing across the long tail of lesser-known form plugins.

Scores higher than 56% of indexed plugins

About

Friendly Captcha is a privacy-first anti-bot solution that protects WordPress website forms from spam and abuse.

Active Installs 10k+

Rating ★★★½ 3.9/5

Last Updated 2026-09-07 11:59am GMT

Requires WordPress 5.0+

Tested Up To 7.1

Requires PHP 7.3+

✓ No known vulnerabilities

What It Does

Friendly Captcha for WordPress adds a privacy-focused anti-bot challenge to your site forms, including login, registration, comment, and contact forms, without tracking users or presenting visual puzzles. It works by running a cryptographic puzzle in the visitor's browser to distinguish humans from bots, which keeps the user experience frictionless. The plugin integrates with popular form builders and WooCommerce out of the box.

Who It's For

This plugin is a strong fit for site owners in the EU or other privacy-sensitive markets who need GDPR-friendly spam protection without sending visitor data to third-party captcha services. It also suits small businesses, membership sites, and e-commerce stores running standard forms that want a set-and-forget solution with no visual interruption for legitimate visitors.

Who Should Skip It

If you already rely on a form plugin with a tightly integrated captcha option (such as WPForms, Forminator, or hCaptcha for WP) or if you only need comment spam filtering at scale, you probably do not need a separate captcha plugin. Sites with very low traffic or no public-facing forms will get little value from adding it.

The Bottom Line

Friendly Captcha is a solid, well-maintained option for privacy-conscious site owners who want invisible bot protection without Google reCAPTCHA tracking, and its perfect maintenance signals a healthy project. The trade-off is its smaller install base and limited support track record, which means edge-case integrations may require some hands-on work. Overall Quality Score: 73.16/100.

Pick Akismet if comment and trackback spam is your primary problem, since it is the de facto standard with six million installs and minimal configuration.

WPForms Lite 97/100

Choose WPForms if you also need a full form builder with a captcha baked in, rather than a standalone captcha layer.

Forminator Forms 94/100

Pick Forminator when you want a free all-in-one form, quiz, and payment plugin that ships with its own honeypot and captcha options.

CleanTalk Anti-Spam 92/100

Choose CleanTalk if you need a paid, cloud-based firewall that protects comments, registrations, and forms in one subscription.

hCaptcha for WP 91/100

Pick hCaptcha when you want a privacy-respecting but more widely adopted alternative with stronger compatibility across form plugins.